Pentagon: Violence In Iraq Rising

(CBS/AP)  Sectarian violence is spreading in Iraq and the security problems have become more complex than at any time since the U.S. invasion in 2003, a Pentagon report said Friday.

In a notably gloomy report to Congress, the Pentagon reported that illegal militias have become more entrenched, especially in Baghdad neighborhoods where they are seen as providers of both security and basic social services.

The report described a rising tide of sectarian violence, fed in part by interference from neighboring Iran and Syria and driven by a "vocal minority" of religious extremists who oppose the idea of a democratic Iraq.

Death squads targeting mainly Iraqi civilians are a growing problem, heightening the risk of civil war, the report said.

"Death squads and terrorists are locked in mutually reinforcing cycles of sectarian strife," the report said, adding that the Sunni-led insurgency "remains potent and viable" even as it is overshadowed by the sect-on-sect killing.

"Conditions that could lead to civil war exist in Iraq, specifically in and around Baghdad, and concern about civil war within the Iraqi civilian population has increased in recent months," the report said. It is the latest in a series of quarterly reports required by Congress to assess economic, political and security progress.

However, in his weekly radio address Saturday, U.S. President George W. Bush painted a rosier picture of Iraq.

"Our commanders and diplomats on the ground believe that Iraq has not descended into a civil war," Mr. Bush said. "They report that only a small number of Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, while the overwhelming majority want peace and a normal life in a unified country."

A growing number of members of Congress are calling for either a shift in the Bush administration's Iraq strategy or a timetable for beginning a substantial withdrawal of American forces. Although administration officials say progress is being made in Iraq, U.S. commanders have increased U.S. troop levels by about 13,000 over the past five weeks, to 140,000, mainly due to increased violence in the Baghdad area.

In other developments:

An Army investigator has recommended that four soldiers accused of murder in an Iraqi raid face the death penalty. Lt. Col. James P. Daniel Jr. made the recommendation in report obtained Saturday by The Associated Press. Daniel found several aggravating factors that warrant a sentence of death in the case of four soldiers accused of killing three men during a May raid in Iraq.

Iraq's government has formally taken over the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, site of an abuse scandal by U.S. soldiers, the U.S. military said Saturday. Coalition forces transferred operations of the prison to the Iraqi Justice Ministry on Friday, said a military spokesman for detainee operations.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki discussed Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric Saturday, while police found the tortured and blindfolded bodies of 13 Pakistani and Indian pilgrims and their Iraqi driver south of the capital. Attacks across the rest of Iraq left at least nine people dead, while the government announced it had formally taken over the notorious Abu Ghraib prison from coalition authorities. Al-Maliki met Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, with discussions focusing on the current security situation, al-Sistani's office said.

A barrage of coordinated bomb and rocket attacks on eastern Baghdad neighborhoods killed at least 47 people and wounded more than 200 within half an hour on Thursday evening, police and hospital officials said.

President George W. Bush said Thursday the war against Islamic militants was like last century's fight against Nazis and communists and that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would lead to its conquest by America's worst enemies.

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